Refugees Look For Hope in a Forgotten Place
When the Ukraine war started, you might have asked yourself what you would do if war broke out in your own country. Would you sit tight, and wait for the bombs to drop? Would you sign up and fight? Or, would you look for a way to keep your family safe? At least 12 million people have fled their homes in Ukraine since Russia invaded. Many people in the UK even opened their homes to these refugees, through the Homes for Ukraine scheme.
While opening their arms and their borders to refugees from Ukraine however, European governments have been waging war against refugees from other countries. Back in 2015, the global media alerted us to a ‘migrant crisis’ in Europe – but were they calling it a crisis for those fleeing, or for the countries receiving them?
Greece was particularly affected, at one point hosting the largest refugee camp in Europe. Founded in January 2013, the Moria Refugee Camp on Lesvos was described as an ‘open air prison’ by Human Rights Watch, and was burned down in September 2020. There is now a smaller, temporary camp which has been dubbed ‘Moria 2.0.’ With Ukraine grabbing the headlines, the fate of refugees in Greece dropped off the radar, but a recent New York Times article brought this issue back to our screens. Their video shows asylum seekers, among them young children, being rounded up, taken to sea and abandoned on a raft. Greece has again hit the headlines this month with the horrifying news that over 70 people have died and hundreds are missing after a boat capsized in the Peloponnese. Greece declared three days of mourning, but there is ongoing debate over how the coast guard handles these incidents.
Just before this tragedy struck, I spoke to Philippa and Eric Kempson from the Hope Project about their work with refugees on Lesvos. When the refugee crisis started, they were living 100 metres from the beach where boats were arriving and couldn’t turn a blind eye to the suffering on their own doorstep. They have been distributing essential items to refugees there since 2016, and also run an arts centre with a focus on mental health. This has become a safe space for refugees to express themselves and discover new talents, creating pieces that are not only thought provoking but often beautiful – despite the pain and suffering the artists have endured.
How did you first become aware of the so called ‘migrant crisis’ in Greece?
Philippa: We were involved from 2014. It was an accident of geography as we lived 100 metres from the beach. There had always been boats arriving, but we thought we shouldn’t get involved because it’s a complicated issue.
We first realised something was very wrong in November 2014. We were taking our daughter for a ‘fun’ day out to Turkey, but when we arrived at Mytilene port we saw it was full of women and children being kept in an enclosure without any shade. In November the days can be sunny, but the nights can be really cold. We were horrified. We talked about it all day and on the way back gathered some food that we hoped to give to the families. There was a line of police with dogs between us, so we couldn’t even do this.
Then in early 2015 a boat landed and there was a little girl whose face is etched in my memory. She was only five or six but was staring into space with that faraway stare. I had no idea what to do but knew we needed to do something. It was freezing. So we went to the supermarket and bought what we could for that boat. It escalated from a few boats a week to a boat every day at least. By October it was insane – one day we had 12,000 people.
One issue was that Syrians are not recognised as refugees in Turkey (though they share a border). They only recognise refugees from Europe. Anyone else won’t get protection in Turkey – so no education, healthcare or right to work.
We were very naïve. We thought help will arrive because we’re in Europe. Here we are nine years later waiting for something to be done. It just gets worse.
How did the Hope Project start, and what was the attitude of the local authorities?
Philippa: It started in early 2016, but we were soon shut down and charged. We were evicted from the building and we’re still fighting that case. The locals tried everything and in the end we were shut down by the Ministry of Tourism. It was a derelict hotel we’d rented as a winter shelter, to stop people freezing to death. People die of hypothermia on the beach and it can happen quickly if you don’t intervene.
They shut us down for ‘running a hotel without a licence’ and we’re still fighting that seven years later. The EU and the authorities have only ever tried to stop the boats. It’s a tale of abuse.
Refugees can volunteer at the Hope Project, helping other refugees. Why do you think this approach is important?
Philippa: People serving clothes for example are the same nationality or from the community themselves or have a similar language. They understand people’s cultural needs. We don’t have a smiley cultist Christian from Idaho who’s gifting something down. With volunteers from their own community it becomes an equal transaction. It doesn’t feel like charity.
Volunteers working here love it because they become part of something. They are no longer a refugee but a manager, barber, beautician, tailor, cook, artist. They become part of the dysfunctional family of the Hope Project.
You provide people with essentials such as clothes, shoes, blankets and hygiene items, but also have a focus on psychological wellbeing. How did the Hope Project Art Centre get started?
Philippa: It started in 2018. We’d been running distribution close to the Moria camp and I said I’m tired of only giving emergency responses. People were saying ‘my wife is dead’, ‘my kids are sick’, and we were giving them socks. Or ‘I have no legs’ and it was ‘sorry I don’t have a wheelchair but here’s a toothbrush’. We started focusing then on mental health.
When Moria was there the art project was a massive success. We didn’t have enough space inside for everyone. It was Eric’s baby because he’s the artist, but I was dubious. I was like, how are people going to come and paint when they’re living in that? How are they going to sit and relax?
But I was blown away. It is the most happy, peaceful place ever. It is beautiful.
Eric: Some of them have moved on and are now making a living from art. 99 percent had never even done a drawing when they started.
We’ve had some fantastic artists. In 2019, we sent a photograph of one painting to the Vatican. They sent two people to come and pick it up and said they would present it to the Pope. They then took the artist and her mother to meet Pope Francis and she gave the painting to the Pope herself on 26th December 2019. That’s the second painting the Pope has from the Hope Project!
It must be deeply traumatic for refugees fleeing conflict or persecution and leaving their friends and family behind. They may then find themselves in limbo, in cramped and dirty camps. How have you seen this affect people’s mental health?
Philippa: People have been destroyed from start to finish. The ones that survive have often been robbed, raped, beaten, kidnapped, seen their family drowned or in the hands of traffickers. It’s a group of very broken people that will never be able to be normal. The kids more than anything. Their parents are grateful for the shitty jobs they get, but issues will come later when those kids grow up and realise what we put their parents through. It will be a very angry generation of people that never needed to happen.
Syrians coming across in 2015 had money. That trip was at least $1000 and some were even paying $3-4,000. Bodies were washing up with tens of thousands of dollars. We could have let them go to an embassy in Turkey – apply for temporary asylum and given them a visa, let them work and pay their own way as they had the money and would be less broken.
Eric: In the arts centre I have some Afghan sisters and they are broken. Greece has rejected their whole family for asylum. A lot get stuck because they get rejected and it means the legal process goes on for years – they have to find money to fight it.
Philippa: When Moria was around we had kids as young as ten attempting suicide. It was that bad. Suicide is a constant with us. We’re not mental health professionals but we know depression is so easy to set in and once you start that cycle it’s very difficult to break.
How do you facilitate the art at the centre?
Eric: We have two warehouses – one for abstract art and one for realism. I’m a great believer that people need to use their own mentality and I’m not going to influence them in any way. I’ve never gone to art college. I’m a self taught painter. I encourage them to work amongst themselves and come up with their own speciality. In universities and colleges you can see that the art is often what the teacher is drumming into them. I’ll go in and help if they’re struggling with shading or something. I try to encourage them. I’ll tell them you’re getting there, it’s getting better and better.
Have your artists been featured in any exhibitions?
Eric: We have an exhibition in the Czech Republic that’s been going for five or six years. They flew us in and featured the exhibition in their Parliament building.
Philippa: We’re part of another exhibition called Horizons in Nuremberg. The theme is past, present and future refugees. It’s an uncomfortable one but also quite beautiful. Nuremberg is a place for uncomfortable home truths unfortunately. We’re part of the Present, and there’s a futuristic part with us all being refugees on another planet.
Eric: Christie’s also put on a ten-day exhibition and had an auction night, with Ian Hislop as the auctioneer. They gave us the whole bottom floor. They have massive ground floor windows where they exhibit the art and we had one painting in each window. It was an amazing night – fair play to Christie’s for that. They did the whole thing for zero commission too.
Philippa: We sold paintings and the money went to the Hope Project, but the real point was to reach people we would never have reached. You find yourself in an echo chamber, so this was a way to reach different people.
People have a view of refugees that they’re all the same. I’m like actually no – this is a professor of art in Sudan, he was forced to flee because his life was in danger. This young woman who is only 17 wants to be an engineer. It’s a way of crossing that line without forcing it down people’s throats. Also being a voice for these people – to show they’re not just people coming over here to take our jobs and live off benefits.
Eric: I’m now trying to start an exhibition for some Iranian women in Switzerland, but it’s tricky finding somewhere that will exhibit without commission.
How have you seen the refugee situation on Lesvos change since 2015?
Philippa: Lesvos and Greece has generally been completely forgotten. They still don’t give a shit – people are dying just as much as they were then. No one has ever tried to find safe passage or make their lives easier.
Successive governments including the UK have spent billions making Europe a fortress. Syrians all had a legal claim for asylum in 2015 but safe passage was never an option. They have all these excuses and say Europe is full, but Ukraine has shown every excuse for what it is – it’s just racist. These refugees are the wrong colour or religion, from the wrong country. Nice white Christians on the other hand can come in and we’ll give them a house and let them work straight away.
There are a lot less people to help, a lot less money and a lot less interest coming in and yet the work remains the same. It’s probably for us, the hardest it’s been since the crazy days of 2015.
Eric: There were six bodies today. If it was in 2014 it would be all over Europe. The BBC. Now no one knows about it. We’ve lost a lot of people this year.
Philippa: More dead migrants is irrelevant because they’re not really seen as people.
You posted on Facebook recently that the authorities are now denying food and shelter to those whose asylum claims are pending, yet people are also not allowed to leave the camp.
Philippa: Yes, people are now being denied food, water and shelter. We feed everyone at the project. Our food bill is from 800 to 1000 every week just feeding volunteers and artists. Some of the men have pregnant wives, some have asylum and some are rejects. Do I say I’ll feed them but let their families starve?
Yesterday a guy cycled up to me looking desperate. He said I haven’t had any sleep, my child is hungry, my wife doesn’t have enough milk to feed the baby and we are no longer entitled to food. If their claim is rejected they’re not allowed out of the camp, so what are they supposed to eat?
There are a few young Palestinian men who now have asylum but they’re still waiting for papers. What do they eat while they’re waiting for that? They are either going to rob someone or will be forced to commit crimes to eat. Then they get arrested and their life is done. There are some groups finding money for the extra food, but we are so tired of filling in the gaps for a government that has been handsomely paid to support refugees.
We should be doing an art project, not trying to find baby milk for a child that can’t sleep because it’s starving. We shouldn’t be handing out clothes because no one else does – the authorities have never given clothes. Moria didn’t provide shelter for most people. There were 3000 people housed, but by the end of 2019 there was 22,000 in that camp. Tents came from organisations that couldn’t stand by watching people sleeping under trees in the middle of winter.
I don’t know what Greece is paid now per refugee by the EU, but it was 14,000 per refugee per annum. Greece is not in debt anymore which is fascinating. Economically they’re doing really well. They’ve got fighter jets, tanks, all the things we need!
Eric: I’ve been to Moria, trying to make shelters for people. Kids with no parents sheltering under trees. Even in the war they made sure that prisoners of war were given a high standard of food, fresh water and shelter. We have 570 people that now get no food, and are not allowed out of the camp.
You can’t have people in a closed camp, not being fed.
What do you think about the general attitude to refugees in Europe now?
Philippa: The politics of the European countries and a lot of countries now has become so racist. We’ve just watched it in the Turkish elections. The guy from the left was really doing quite well and then he started to feel a little shaky. His response between the election and the run-off, was actually I’m going to get rid of every refugee in Turkey. It’s a vote winner as far as anyone’s concerned.
We went to Berlin a couple of years ago. Part of the Berlin Wall is called the Topography of Terror and shows the rise of fascism in Germany. It’s meant to be there as a warning, but it’s really scary where we’re at now. All this vilifying of refugees is literally the same thing. Someone has to be responsible for the fact professional people have to eat from food banks, people can’t afford electricity, they can’t get work, they can’t buy a house.
It has to be somebody’s fault and with Nazi Germany it was the Jews and the gypsies and now with Europe it’s the refugees, because they are the easiest scapegoat to divert your attention from the fact they are screwing you.
Eric: All these politicians are making rules, regulations and laws to abuse refugees. I can’t see any politicians trying to solve the problem. If I was trying to solve the problem I would get people on the ground. They would solve it because they would understand what the problem is. Greece has been given billions and not done anything for refugees.
They’re now talking about billions in drone contracts to secure the borders of Europe. We haven’t had one bottle of water from any government. All we’ve had is abuse.
Philippa: With the environmental situation we’re going to get many, many more refugees. This is not going to stop. Conflicts are being triggered by environmental issues. Somalia at the moment – it’s on the verge of outright famine. The amount of children dying there every day is insane. The amount of refugees displaced is massive. The only reason they’re not reaching us is because they haven’t got money to pay the smugglers.
The rains have failed in that region for six years. The same with Sudan and now there is a war going on there as well. World War 3 will be over resources and land. What we see going on in Africa is very much environmentally triggered.
The numbers of people from Yemen are going up too. Suella is on her high horse, but this is our (Britain’s) fault. We are involved from a historic point of view but also from current events – the UK is one of the World’s biggest arms dealers. They are ready to export bombs but don’t want to import the by-product of said bombs, which is refugees.
What do you need to keep going, and how can people help?
Philippa: Our biggest challenge is keeping the whole thing running. It has become more of a challenge since the world’s attention has been on Ukraine. We’ve been on a knife edge for a year trying to keep enough money coming in. Now we’re down to 4 months’ operating costs. The whole project means so much to so many people. It’s expensive with the electricity for heating in winter, fans in summer, and feeding people every day.
We used to get at least four containers of supplies a year from the UK, but now it’s much harder with Brexit. We need funds to keep going and help with fund raising so we can feed people, pay the rent and keep the lights on. Providing this environment for people is not cheap.
We’re looking for more support, more help. This isn’t finished because Suella’s focused on five boats crossing the Channel.
Find out more about the Hope Project and how to donate here:
